THE LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFUL 



pointed out, that there are two quite dif- 

 ferent interpretations of Nature, namely, 

 the scientific and the poetical. The two 

 should not be confused. A book on science 

 should not be mixed with poetry; and a 

 book of sentiment should not pretend to be 

 scientific. But both interpretations are 

 legitimate. 



The beauty of the trees has appealed to 

 artists of all kinds, though more especially 

 to landscape gardeners, painters, and poets. 

 We can quickly see how inevitable this is in 

 the case of the landscape gardener. He 

 works with trees. They are the best of all 

 his picture-making materials. The painters 

 have painted trees ever since they have 

 painted landscape at all, but especially 

 since the days of Corot. The poets have 

 written of trees frorn the day they discov- 

 ered the natural world, — that is, we may 

 say, from Chaucer down, but particularly 

 from the time of Wordsworth. One of 

 them said, 



I remember, I remember, the fir-trees dark and 



high; 

 I used to think their slender tops would almost 



reach the sky. 



And another, when the yearning for 



34 



